Thursday, September 09, 2004

Clearing the pipes

You guys are lucky I have mad self-censorship skills. I keep wanting to post things about the aftermath of the Beslan tragedy, but I know full well that if I post one thing, I'm gonna have to talk about it all. I mean, there's madness. But I have no illusions about you people. You do not come here for cogent commentary on global affairs, and good for you. Unfortunately, I've got this itch, and it's just gotta be scratched, so I'm going to take a deeeeeeeeeeeeep breath (ready?) and get it all out in one sentence. If you're interested, read the next paragraph. If not, skip on.

Shit, meet fan:(okay, exhale) In classic Kremlin style, journalists critical of the government are treated to the golden oldie of boot-heel-on-neck (one detained, one allegedly poisoned, one prominent editor-in-chief sacked); citizens are demanding their own version of the 9/11 commission and the Kremlin is all, "What do you think this, some kind of liberal democracy," while they continue to lie, lie, lie and say that there were no Chechens among the hostage-takers; Putin is all, "you don't go sit down with Bin Laden, so why do you tell me I need to negotiate with child murdering bastards;" Georgia is pretty well convinced that Russia is about to seriously start some shit in South Ossetia, and the whole region is on edge. Putin took the time to meet with a collection of foreign journalists and Russian experts to discuss his thoughts, which kind of pissed of some Russians, with whom he has not discussed his thoughts; per Olga Gerasimenko: "Don't misunderstand me; I'm not at all opposed to the idea of our president meeting with foreign journalists and political analysts. But neither can I imagine that on September 15, 2001 - four days after the terrible tragedy of the Twin Towers - the president of the United States could have met at his out-of-town residence with a group of only foreign journalists and political scientists, to answer the questions that were tormenting all the American people at the time. I can't imagine the citizens of the United States being forced to learn the views of their own president from an article published in any foreign newspaper, no matter how influential." People are hurting, and say what you will about Putin, he is not a leader well equipped to respond to people's needs. People respond to him.

Okay, done! I also have some nice photos of the Russian embassy covered in flowers, so I'll try to post those someday as well. I have a little bit of storage space through my web service people, but I need an FTP somethin' somethin' in order to store photos? Tommy? Somebody?

Okay, but really, don't go away for good, dear readers. Because I've got some good stuff in store: a story about boobs! And next week, a story about the lamest outing ever (it hasn't happened yet, but I already know it will be blogworthy).